TY - JOUR
T1 - Origin of heavy rare earth mineralization in South China
AU - Xu, Cheng
AU - Kynicky, Jindrich
AU - Smith, Martin
AU - Kopriva, Antonin
AU - Brtnicky, Martin
AU - Urubek, Tomas
AU - Yang, Yueheng
AU - Zhao, Zheng
AU - He, Chen
AU - Song, Wenlei
N1 - © The Author(s) 2017. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
PY - 2017/2/21
Y1 - 2017/2/21
N2 - Heavy rare earth elements (HREE) are dominantly mined from the weathering crusts of granites in South China. Although weathering processes occur globally, no economic HREE resources of this type have yet been found outside China. Here, we report the occurrence of unidentified REE minerals in the granites from South Chinese deposits. They contain high levels of both HREE and light REE, but are strongly depleted in Ce, implying high oxidation state. These REE minerals show higher initial Nd isotope ratio than primary REE-rich minerals (eNd(t)=0.9±0.8 versus -11.5±0.5). The mineralized weathering crusts inherited REE signature of the granites, but show more Ce depletion and more overall concentration of the REE. We propose, therefore, that highly oxidized, REE-rich fluids, derived from external, isotopically depleted sources, metasomatized the granites, which resulted in Ce depletion as Ce4+ and enrichment of the remaining REE, especially the HREE, contributing to formation of a globally important REE resource.
AB - Heavy rare earth elements (HREE) are dominantly mined from the weathering crusts of granites in South China. Although weathering processes occur globally, no economic HREE resources of this type have yet been found outside China. Here, we report the occurrence of unidentified REE minerals in the granites from South Chinese deposits. They contain high levels of both HREE and light REE, but are strongly depleted in Ce, implying high oxidation state. These REE minerals show higher initial Nd isotope ratio than primary REE-rich minerals (eNd(t)=0.9±0.8 versus -11.5±0.5). The mineralized weathering crusts inherited REE signature of the granites, but show more Ce depletion and more overall concentration of the REE. We propose, therefore, that highly oxidized, REE-rich fluids, derived from external, isotopically depleted sources, metasomatized the granites, which resulted in Ce depletion as Ce4+ and enrichment of the remaining REE, especially the HREE, contributing to formation of a globally important REE resource.
U2 - 10.1038/ncomms14598
DO - 10.1038/ncomms14598
M3 - Article
VL - 8
SP - 1
EP - 7
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
ER -